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Daily Reviews Summary 03/18/09

QPAD CT Gaming Mousepad ReviewTechwareLabs has published a review of the QPAD CT Gaming Mousepad

Are you looking to get the most out of your game and do it in style? You might want to take a look at the GRIN CT by QPAD. Will this Swedish company kill the competition or have you laying in a trench looking down the end of the enemies barrel? Join JasonD as we find out.

The PaLiT GeForce GTX 260 Sonic 216 SP is factory overclocked to give gamers the ultimate gaming and home entertaining experience. With the latest 55nm GPU powering this NVIDIA GeForce GTX Core 216 graphics card it should be interesting to see the power savings and temperature decrease versus a standard 65nm version of the same card.

When you hear "Gaming Case", you know that it's going to be designed to offer optimal cooling. The V9 chassis uses one 230mm top exhaust fan, one 120mm rear exhaust fan, and one 120mm front intake fan.

Style-minded people who place a premium on precision craftsmanship and design will want to set the Adamo in their sights. While the machine is certainly an upper-end product, Dell has always done exceptionally well in the realm of mass production, so there is a reasonable chance that the Adamo could end up being more affordable than the competition by the end of the year. We hope so, as there's a lot of demand for a light ultrathin laptop that can pack more power than the current netbooks. But there might be a bigger issue. Dell has gotten pretty good at design over the years and Adamo proves it - Dell can actually be stylish! The problem is that you need a customer base that covets that approach and we're not sure Dell has it. Apple's strength is that it has a few million customers that will buy anything it puts out because it's either a fashion statement or the brand says something about them. The turn Dell is trying to make is a tough one right now. Adamo is interesting, but probably too fashionable for the price. If cost isn't an issue, this is the slickest Windows-based laptop around.

The Kingston 16gb DataTraveler HyperX USB drive sports the name HyperX like Kingston's line of enthusiasts memory, ram that's known for it's speed and performance. With a name like HyperX, one expects this to be one fast USB drive right? Well that's what I'm here to find out, if it is as fast as it's namesake. I've got the HyperX USB drive compared to several other 16gb capacity drives as well to see who comes out on top, so continue on

With the last CPU Cooler review here at XSReviews way back in October of last year, it was time for another. It comes in the form of the Scythe Mugen 2 which is a revision of the previous Mugen cooler and features Scythe's new MAPS (Multiple Airflow Pass-through Structure) technology along with a Multi Fan Mount Structure. Read on to find out more...

Although most computer cases these days will have have front mounted USB, audio and maybe even firewire ports, I find that they still lack a lot of the other connections commonly used by avid computer users and media junkies. I personally find it really inconvenient to reach around to the back of my computer and dig amongst cables every time I want to plug in an E-SATA hard drive. Of course my USB card reader also seems to be another unnecessary component laying on my desk. With flash cards being so common these days I think that card readers should be much more standard in computer cases than they are. The use of a 3.5" bay card reader and I/O panel will keep all the ports you'll ever need in one easy to access place while allowing you the ability to read camera cards as well. The FP35B is Silverstone's latest offering in this field, which offers one unique feature over many others - the ability to power external hard drives.

Last year Amazon introduced their somewhat revolutionary electronic book reader called the Kindle, which we reviewed at launch time. Although the technology was excellent, the first Kindle had several design flaws that kept it on the far side of perfection. Recently Amazon brought out the next generation Kindle, aptly named the Kindle 2. We decided to check it out to see how the new Kindle stacked up to the original Kindle as well as other e-book readers.

The CPU Cooler we have here today is a little different from the usual tower-format design; the distinctive V-shape makes this product stand out but will it be able to compete with the tried and tested tower-format that has dominated in recent times? Tech-Reviews finds out in this review.

Coolers have adapted to fit and cool almost every single part of a computer rig in order to maximise performance. Today, Coolink have kindly sent us their Silent Savior hard drive cooler which promises to be a cheap way to keep your HD cool so as to work to its full potential. However, do all these coolers really help keep your PC running smoothly by keeping temperatures down? The Silent Savior aims to do just that.

When we characterize design of an notebook, in most cases we describe it or as neutral business or as visually very attractive. MSI EX620 is somewhere in between: very nice notebook without tacky and too showy details but still unusual and pleasing. Ocean Wave design is much noticeable on this than on some earlier models and now same wavy texture is noticeable on palm rest area. Interesting detail is transition of Ocean Wave texture to black, on sides of notebook. This is just a detail but it really looks nice. Thanks to mentioned texture and bright gray colored palm rest area, fingerprints are not that noticeable compared to notebooks that also have piano finish on palm rest area.

The Fusion 550R PSU, a new and great product from Arctic Cooling. It was equips with the 80mm F8 Pro fan situated outside of the PSU housing to provide a quiet yet performance power to meet the enthusiast requirements.......

Throughout all of 2008, I made it my mission to test every high-performance CPU cooler that Benchmark Reviews received. The Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors did their part to separate the cream of the crop from our large collection of LGA775 coolers. In our previous Best CPU Cooler Performance article, Benchmark Reviews retired the LGA775 platform from its testing duties and made room for the up-and-coming LGA1366 socket. It didn't take long to collect several CPU coolers designed for the Intel Core i7 CPU X58 platform. This Best CPU Cooler Performance LGA1366 - Q1 2009 article focuses on a wide selection of performance-cooling products for overclockers. It's a mistake to think that any LGA775 cooler can do just as well with the new LGA1366/Core i7 platform; primarily because the size and location of processor cores has changed.

The Future of Stereo 3D Part I: Nvidia GeForce 3D VisionHardware Canucks posted the first article in their Future of Stereo 3D series. Part One focuses on Nvidia's GeForce 3D Vision.

Whether it was the out-of-this-world 3D trailer for the upcoming Pixar movie Monsters versus Aliens at the Intel booth or the amazing 52" Samsung 3D monitor, stereoscopic 3D seemed to have captured the hearts and minds of many a jaded professional at an otherwise drab show. Unfortunately, neither the InTru3D-rendered Intel display nor the Samsung screen were interactive which brings us to where this article is heading; two of the stereo 3D technologies out there that are supposed to bring a new level of immersion to the PC games we play. One of these technologies is Nvidia's recently-released GeForce 3D Vision which garnered immense exposure at CES to the point where there were actually lineups forming of people who wanted to play their favourite games in stereo 3D.

I have to admit that when I received the eSAU108 External DVD Drive from Lite-On, I wondered, "do people still have a use for these?" - Most laptops these days carry with them a ROM drive and as for using one with a standard PC, it just seems silly.

If there wasn't a market for the device, though, we would like to think Lite-On wouldn't have created one. But since they have, I’m sure that they first did their research and discovered that there are people out there who want one. So today we're going to take the time to have a look at an external DVD Drive from Lite-On with the model number eSAU108.

if you’ve never heard of them before, is that “other” German headphone company, but THE headphone company according to them. Of course, the other would be Sennheiser. They’ve been in business since 1991 and have several patented technologies. One of which is their S-Logic technology, which gives us this natural surround sound effect, and the other is their Ultra Low Emission (ULE) shielding that keeps your brain from frying by reducing radiation from the drivers by up to 98%.

The first thing that stands out on this case are the beautiful graphics, that really have to be seen in person to get a grip on just how nice they really are. Pictures alone do not do it justice; the paintwork is smooth and flawless on top of the Cooler Master chassis. The artwork does not just cover one side and the front, but the theme wraps around the whole case - including the top sides and front. The front side shows the flaming skull the case is named for, along with the CSX logo and unit number - 56 - of this case in the series of 400. The rear is much like that of the stock RC 830 chassis. A single 120mm fan and the power supply are the only means for exhausting air out of the chassis.

Denmark-based SteelSeries puts great time and research into designing top notch peripherals for computer users. Their line of gaming mice is no exception. But does the ultra feminine Iron.Lady Ikari model live up to the SteelSeries' promise of tough grade gaming equipment? We'll test and find out!

Inno3D a week or two ago released a GeForce GTX 260 iChill edition with some really extreme cooling. See, Arctic cooling recently released their new Accelero XTREME GTX cooler, designated for the nVIDIA GeForce GTX 260/280/285. And Inno3D is bundling them with their SP216 based GeForce GTX 265.

Now, here at Guru3D we are not easily impressed, however what Inno3D managed to do here in combo with this cooler is simply exhilarating as even under full GPU load temperatures remained under 50 Degrees C allowing fairly extensive overclocks on an already overclocked product. Definitely check out the full 22 page review at Guru3D.com

The HTPC came about to combine many or all components of a home theater setup into a single box. As a convergence device, the HTPC combines the functions of a personal computer and a digital video recorder. Effectively a HTPC can replace DVD/Blu-ray players, CD players, recording devices and various other multimedia entertainment devices.

One of the greatest challenges a HTPC faces is fitting in with the rest of your living room equipment, and this burden is placed at large on the case. Besides good looks, the case must operate at a reasonable volume and for a HTPC that volume is near silent. And while the volume issue can easily be solved by lowering fan speeds, this usually creates another potentially worse problem, heat!

Today we are going to look at some new HTPC cases that range in size, price, and features. These HTPC cases include the Antec MicroFusion Remote 350, Silverstone LC13B-E, Lian-Li PC-C37, Thermaltake DH104, and GlacialTech Altair A381.